


the theory of mutual love

by aestheticisms (R_Vienna)



Category: Hakuouki
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Memory Loss, POV Second Person, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 00:11:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4585530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Vienna/pseuds/aestheticisms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Have we met before?"<br/>-- A story that repeats. </p><p>Souji Okita, Chizuru Yukimura.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the theory of mutual love

the theory of mutual love

.

.

.

The "start" doesn't seem to be anywhere

The "end" doesn't seem to be anywhere as well

Since no one can really see these thoughts

I tried putting them into a song like this

The more you say "I love you", the feelings of "love" for you intensify

Probably even until I die, I won't be able to convey them, but

You say "You might die first of too much happiness."

.

.

.

 

“Hey, hey, have I met you before?”

You turn around, and try not to flinch, no, no over the top reaction to Souji Okita’s piercing stare. He’s got an easy grin on his lips, it’s curled just so, and would leave most of the student body with an insatiable urge to fight, but for you, it only leaves you feeling fluttery. Like your fingertips are moving on their own, facilitating your soul’s passage from this plane to the next, yes, that’s how it feels to be under the kendo team captain’s viridian stare.

“No, I don’t think so.”

You make an attempt at coyness, but honestly, it just comes off as forward. Blunt, you can hear Heisuke’s laughter, jeez, there you go, playing with another boy’s heart.

You can also, imagine yourself knocking him over the head for being so inconsiderate. This was different. It’s not every day that someone with such an illustrative history comes down from the heavens to introduce himself.

“Ah, well, it’s nice to meet you now.” You wonder if he ever stops smiling, like that, with the narrowed eyes and the haughty look, absolutely infuriating—your train of thought derails when he throws an arm around you, pulls you close to his chest, you don’t even have the time to let out the stereotypical shriek because his cardigan is warm and soft and smells like mint and pine, crisp and clear and okay, fine, you maneuver yourself so that you can actually see again, and his grip is firm, but relaxed just enough to allow your movement.

“Take a picture with me, Yukimura! Come on. To commemorate our meeting!” He laughs and you sigh. He’s got a smartphone, a top of the line piece worth more than the school’s gym, probably, and he opens up a camera app that lets you put emojis and stickers. These are all things you would’ve never associated with him. (You’re not sure why, considering you just met. That’s a judgement that shouldn’t be able to pass without at least some time together.)

“To the future.”

A little too sentimental for your taste. You smile politely, and he gives you another grin, he gives those away like candy. Okita, not Souji (at least, not yet—), runs his hand through his hair, the sun catches on the chestnut strands, and leaves him looking like the cover model for a high end magazine. Well, yes. To the future. You stick your hand out, and he looks at it with an amused expression before taking it in his. There is no threading of fingers, but his hand feels familiar, his calluses rub against your soft palms. Just as fast, his hand is gone, and you stuff your own in your blazer’s pockets.

He leans forward, and you lean back.

“Scared?”

“Of what?”

“It’s a terribly romantic sunset, who knows what I’ll do.”

His grin doesn’t deter you.

“Have a good night, Okita.”

He presses his fingertips against your temple, twirls a strand of dark hair, and you wave him off.

“Bye bye, Yukimura.”

.

You don’t sleep very well.

You wake up a headache and a memory, something foggy and distant, just barely out of reach. The more you think about it, the less you figure out, so, maybe it was better to leave it as it was. Whatever  it may have been. You throw your hair up in a ponytail, and reach over to your phone, it’s been buzzing nonstop, the little red light flickers like a firefly.

> 14 new texts

> 49 new followers

> **SOUJI OKITA** : _first of all, my bad_ —

Would it better to ignore this, too? Probably not. You bite down on your lower lip and take a deep breath before unlocking your phone and facing the deluge of comments and direct messages on your Instagram. Now showing, a horde of angry girls demonizing you for getting too close to the school prince. (It’s unbelievable, considering one hundred percent of them don't attend your school, and know Okita from kendo tournaments and his very popular blog.) The rest of the messages are from your terrible brother, who you’ve had to block several times now, and would have to call your service provider, yet again, to get rid of him. Today was not a good day.

Ah. Well. You trudge to your kitchen, stuff your phone in your pajama shorts pocket, and think about how much work was left to be done for the school festival. If the maid cafe was going to be a success, you should probably practice your baking…

Sigh.

It’s a slow Sunday, and you finally remember to read Okita’s text message when the cupcakes are in the oven.

**SOUJI OKITA:**

_first of all, my bad--_

_i wasn’t aware that so many of my followers would react so negatively to our pictures together!_

_second of all, if any of the come near you, i’ll do you a favor and kill them. :-)_

You stare at the message for a couple more minutes before letting out a sigh. Considering your date the last week, the date where he spent one half of the time taking pictures, and the other half whispering some god awful things into the crook of your neck, this wasn’t even surprising.

**YOU:**

_Please don’t kill anyone, I have entrance exams next week and going to jail for assisting in a first degree murder is not a good idea._

**SOUJI OKITA:**

_booo, that’s just too bad, then. let me know if you decide to change your mind._

_over lunch? maybe? in a bit?_

**YOU:**

_Come over, then. I made cupcakes._

**SOUJI OKITA:**

_perfect, see you then._

He comes over. You put a piece of chocolate cake onto a small plate, and slide it over the table. Okita digs his elbows into the surface and gives you a pout, lips curled and eyes lidded.

“I come allllll this way, and you won’t even feed me.” He sounds hurt, and you roll your eyes.

“Ask nicely, and maybe.”

“Oh please, Yukimura. Honor me with this request.”

You cut up a piece of cake with a silver spoon, and pop it into your mouth.

“Am I to take it from your lips, then?”

“Absolutely not.”

He sighs, and you repeat the motion, leave the spoon dangling halfway, until he takes your wrist and moves the morsel into his mouth. Thanks for the meal. It was never a boring day with Souji Okita. You take turns feeding each other in the most embarrassing of ways, and he spends the afternoon curled up like a cat, head on your lap, legs stretched out on your living room floor. The sunlight makes a guest appearance through half open blinds, it leaves pale yellow streaks against his cheeks, and makes dust particles look like fireflies. You think about the curtains, and how maybe, they should be a little more open, but when you go to move, Okita only drapes himself over you, lovely face buried in the folds of your striped sweater. Fine. Fine. You don’t move and humor him for a bit longer, run your hands through his hair, and wonder what he’s thinking about—you always want to ask, or at the very least, guess, as to what goes on inside his head.

“It’s nothing so complicated, Yukimura.” Okita murmurs, and you blink. He turns around so he’s looking up, and you tilt your head down, black hair falls down, strand by strand. The longest one brushes against his forehead and he scrunches up his face before lifting up a finger to boop the top of you nose. “Don’t over exert yourself.” His tone is teasing, and you huff, cheeks flushed.

“Then, tell me about it.”

“Maybe another time.”

Okita smiles lazily and closes his eyes again. He looks nicest like this, you think, leaning down to press a kiss against his eyelids.

.

“Don’t you think, we’ve met before, we’ve done this before?”

He is desperate, Okita’s shaky hands clutch the lapels of your blazer. He tugs the offending piece of fabric off your shoulders. You watch it fall to the ground, as he works on the buttons on your blouse and you lift your hands up to cup his cheeks. Your fair hands are stained red, blood and dirt fill the spaces in between and you think—he looks beautiful with blood on his face, but it looks better when it’s not coming out of his mouth. When it’s a battle scar instead of an autoimmune deficiency.

“Yes.”

Yes. You have, once or twice, woken up with the feeling of existential dread pressed against your lips and the clash of iron ringing in your ears. Yes, you think that his touch is familiar and his caress is kind, but it has a capacity for cruelty that you’ve only gotten a taste of. To think that somewhere in the back of your head, the idea that by his hand is the only end you foresee, is terrifying.

It is terrifying but it is so familiar and it is so comforting, it is the shiver down your spine. It is the way he nips at your neck, and drags his teeth down your throat.

“Where were we?”

Amidst a battlefield dyed in red, in the eye of a storm that forged nations and ushered in a new era. His arms around your waist, Shinsengumi blues tossed about by savage wind, dark hair tied back in an idolized half twist. Tuberculosis left his skin sickly, but the Water of Life left it pallid, and all you could do was hold onto him, pull him down and make him tear through sinews and bruises until his tongue tasted your blood.

You would do anything to keep him alive, because that was the kind of person you were, but he looked at you with wild red eyes and begged you to let him die.

No.

That wasn’t right either.

Souji Okita, his name was Souji (Souji-san, ah, right, right, the ever elusive first name basis) to the you in the past, he not once wished for death. he embodied the principle like a disgruntled ghost, clinging to the ties that bound him to the wretched earth with a fervor that left you reeling. He was the reaper, and the reaped, one and the same, strung by fate like a puppet. The boy with bamboo sword calluses was not the man, made machine, with a self worth dictated by the body count that followed him. The Souji Okita cradling you against his chest, murmuring about bad decisions and bad tempers and bad, no good, high school days—he was not the Souji Okita that promised murder, and then a little death. He is not the Souji Okita who left bite marks, puncture wounds. You’re not the woman he remembers so fondly and he’s not the boy you know, four classrooms down the hall, but he looks like him and you look like her. There’s a sad kind of symmetry to your existence, years stretched across eras, compounded and extrapolated until there was nothing left but a recollection.

A memory.

His hands stop moving. Your shirt is still half-buttoned, your skirt half-zipped. You put your fingers against the curve of his collarbone, press down and then, splay your hand against his chest. His tie is loose and his green cardigan pools around his hips. Messy hair and a lidded gaze, he breathes out and you breathe in, you press your forehead against his, have to lean forward and then, just, close your eyes. You close your eyes and open your mouth to say something, anything that would offer respite, because the look he’s giving you is faraway and distant, and the worst thing, the worst thing about him is when he’s not right here beside you.

“What are you thinking about?”

“About you, mostly.”

He pauses.

(You wonder how much of that is an inconvenient truth.)

“Thank you. For staying with me—”

.

.

.

Souji Okita, Okita, to her, Souji to her—he’s been split apart in two and he thinks, maybe, that’s the price of living. The price of living in a healthy body and a healthy mind (as healthy as this one can be, considering, all things), one not plagued by the horrors of Eighteen Sixty-five. Maybe this was the price of hands untempered by steel and blood, an exchange for eyes who have not yet seen comrades fall one after the other, then, yes. Maybe it was an acceptable price to pay, waking up from a fever dream, plagued by the laughter of boys who dressed in ceremonial garb with wicked knives and sharp teeth. Now, he wakes up with the sun in his eyes, a phone on his nightstand that has become the main point of intersection. If his life was to be dictated by the whims of others, then for this—(a hand against his chest, he can breathe, in, and out, and then again) he is glad.

And. Yet. A framed, undeveloped picture by his bed.

He sees her, and he sees eternities. Loop after loop, strung together like prayer beads. Okita has never been one for conversations with god.

One man makes a deal with the devil, and one man walks the razor thin line between centuries, unbent and unbroken.

To be both is to be a paradox, an anachronism lost in the sea of time, drifting.

But he’s always been good at playing double.

.

.

.

So.

He tries again.

Hand holding only a piece of the chain link fence, fingers curled tight. He towers over her, dark hair blowing in the wind, straight out of one of his favorite snapshots----Yukimura looks up at him with wide eyes, parted lips. Again, and again, he’ll make it right this time.

“Hey.”

.

.

.

(Have we met before.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> SOOOOO THIS WAS A COMMISSION FOR THE NUMBER 1 OKITA LOVER IN THE UNIVERSE, the very actual mrs okita souji its amazing i know. she's lovely and wonderful and I CANNOT THANK HER ENOUGH for being my first ever commission!!!! thank you!!!!!!!!!! haha
> 
> also, enjoy? LMFAO


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